This invention relates to an electronic musical instrument capable of automatically performing musical ornaments or grace note tones.
There is a digital type electronic musical instrument such as has been disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,882,751 in which a numerical value corresponding to the frequency of a note for a depressed key is read from a frequency information memory by using a code signal (key code) of the depressed key and a muscial tone waveform memory is sequentially called by address signals which are developed by successively accumulating this numerical value. According to this type of electronic musical instrument, an attack start signal (key-on signal) and a decay start signal (key-off signal) are produced in addition to the code signal and these attack and decay start signals are used for controlling the amplitude envelope of the muscial tone.
Accordingly, the prior art electronic musical instrument can produce a musical tone corresponding to a depressed key but cannot produce any tone without depression of a corresponding key. For playing ornaments or grace notes, it is necessary in this type of instrument to depress keys very quickly following a musical score. This however requires a somewhat high playing technique which is beyond the skill of beginners.